Sour Raspberry
by Cherry Champagne
Summary: Creek! Tweek just doesn't know what's good for him. *Booze Blood Sex*
1. Prologue

Top of Form 1

Disclaimer; OBVIOUSLY.  
Warnings; Raep, abuse, and gays, OH MY! (Plus language and stuff, but I was trying to be clever.)  
A/N: I had this idea while discussing Date Rape in Family Studies. I started thinking so hard my friends had to physically grab me to get my attention. It's gonna be...like...three or four chapters, I think. Short ones. I have low self esteem! Anyway, if you read my other shit...you know I love the fluff. This is not gonna be fluff. Oh, and part will be Craig's POV, although he's DEAD. HOW ON EARTH DID THAT HAPPEN!?

Sour Raspberries

_It's such a nice day for a funeral. It'd be nice weather for just about anything. Allover, highly inappropriate feelings overwhelm me. The nip of cold on my raw pink nose. The scent of air untainted by tobacco fumes and the stink of cramped, constant living conditions. How it's started to snow..._

And just what brought me here? Twenty three year old Tweek Tweak, standing in the brisk, watching the coffin recede into the Earth and enjoying small things around me? No thermos is cupped in my hands, no thoughts of when my next hit will come. A slight twitching and shaking, but that could just be the cold. And in all this, crying my eyes out. Because I loved--love--him. And I hate him. And I wanted him to die, and I dreaded seeing him leave the room. Because he was a drug to me, and now, I'm quitting. Cold turkey. And because he's dead. His body disappearing under the mound of dirt means nothing to me; he wasn't leaving, he had left. There was none of him left inside that place. Where he went, I don't know. He could make a perfect angel or a perfect...well...whatever someone in hell is called. And goddammit, I miss him so much. And I'm fucking glad he's gone.

I feel slightly dizzy.

So the question is, what brings me here? I suppose Token's sixteenth birthday party. 

A/N: Revieeeew...it motivates meeee...

Bottom of Form 1


	2. Coffee Schnapps

A/N: I've never been drunk. :/

Token was obviously a token character in our town. I mean, who owns a house that big? Only the Blacks. However much his free-spending attitude set us off, even with our parent's ground-in disdain for anyone better than ourselves, we could obviously see the advantages of a party in a mansion such as his. So the turn out was guaranteed to be greater than that of last period attendance. And, this being South Park, another guarantee was the total level of intoxication by the end of the night.

We were not disappointed. I discovered coffee schnapps. And life was excellent. 

As the night swelled to the point at which you must defend your seating arrangements almost violently, and rooms began to become "occupied!" I began to feel drowsy. Seeing any reason to finally rest my eternally tired eyes a gift from the gods, even if it be chemical, I searched for any space in which I could rest in any position but sitting up with my head tilted off onto my shoulder. Upstairs, within a maze of clean shag carpet and traditional Tribal masks and rooms with incredibly specific uses, I found one seemingly worthy. The artificial light pouring in from the hall cast an outline of a dresser, a small bench, and a low rectangular object that could only be a bed or a sacrificial dais. I didn't bother to turn on the lights. Slightly disorientated, I stumbled in, and fell to my knees on the delightfully springy surface, bounced once, then did an intentional face plant.

"Son of a whore!"

Ow. My face didn't hit mattress. It hit bone and flesh and denim. And thus out from the darkness rose the familiar nasally voice, shouting an appropriate expletive. The owner of which was now grasping at the offended area with both hands. And by "the offended area," I mean that those of you with your mind in the gutter are correct.

"Who was that?!"

I had fallen off the edge off the mattress in the scuffle, and made no attempt to disclose my identity and location. However, my geniusly plotted camouflage of trying to turn into an ottoman was apparently foiled. Craig had rolled to the foot of the bed and was staring craters into my shoulder blades. After a moment of hoping his vision was based on movement, he cuffed me around the head and dragged me up with surprising strength for his thin frame onto the bed.

Methodically, the middle finger rose, and I wished I had a finger puppet or a sharpie or something and I could name it Algernon and give it a German accent, and he fell back onto the mattress and tugged the comforter over his fully-clothed form. I pondered his figure for a moment, the way he managed to seem aggressive even as he was attempting to sleep, before lifting one knee in an effort to stand.

"Just sleep here." He muttered. I froze and stared for another few seconds. Hearing my frozen indecisiveness, as a final punctuation of his command, not offering, he picked a pillow from behind his own head and jammed it into the opposite hemisphere of the bed. Every movement is swift, strong, more demanding than anyone could be with physical pushes and pulls. In a better state I may have had an attack with questions, "What if they think I'm gay what if I drool on him or what if he snores or what if I over sleep and my parents worry what if he pukes" and the like, but with my delicious schnapps-induced sleepiness, I again dropped gracelessly onto the bed, now in a safely predetermined perimeter, and was quickly asleep. 

I had a puppy once. Sadly, my high tension brought on her high tension which brought on my higher tension and in such a pattern until we gave her back to the animal shelter. However, for the week and a half or so in which she was bearable, I would wake up with a warm, soft weight pressing into my side, and for a moment I would love her and want to hug her and plant kisses on the top of her head until she woke up and started biting my arms. The moral; it's nice to wake up with someone else's body heat.

Upon waking, I briefly thought that it was two years ago, and Mocha was well and sleeping beside me. This thought was abolished after an embarrassingly long time, upon realizing that my puppy could be lifted with one arm, and this body was at least a few inches taller than me and a few wider. So unless I had somehow come across some monster human puppy hybrid, this was not Mocha. This realization led to one much more quickly executed; this was Craig. And...I had my arms wrapped around him and my chin on his chest. And he was staring me in the face. And smirking.

"Hey sailor." He said. The statement confused me. He lay propped up against the needlessly ornamental headboard, his hands behind his head, forming a triangle with his long limbs. He didn't show disdain for my embrace, but I certainly did, and jumped back by about a half a foot. The mattress whined. He ignored me, staring forward and continuing on as if speaking to himself despite his use of pronouns, "You know you talk in your sleep?"

"...W-what did I say?" I stood beside the bed at this point, trying not to notice that he had stripped at least to the chest during the course of the night. And that I had been sprawled over him like he was a piece of furniture.

"Let's see...you were talking to your dad for a while, and toward the end you started talking about dogs...and in the middle you were complaining about being cold..."

In retrospect, considering all the things that I could have said, these were about as neutral of topics as could be brought up when spouting out all of your subconscious. However, without the distraction of possible unbearable embarrassment, I saw the sun streaming in through the white curtains.

"Jesus Christ!" I shouted, stooping to dig my shoe from beneath the mattress. At this point, my observer seemed to have an urge that could not be ignored. A foot touched my coccyx, and with a slight twitch of pressure, I was sent forward into the wall. My skull made a dull thunk. I lay, disorientated, on the clean white carpet, as my observer-turned-assailant crept out from beneath the comforter and hovered over my back, his body forming a tent over mine, supported by his arms in standard push-up form, and planted a kiss on the back of my neck.

"C-Craig, Jesus Christ--!"

Slowly he lowered himself onto me, and I could feel the firmness in his boxers in the small of my back. He pushed blonde hair, wilder than ever from rubbing against my pillow throughout the night, away from my forehead, reached his hand to palm my stomach--

He stopped. Wetness seeped through the cloth onto my bare skin. As if picking himself up from tying his shoes he rose, stretched, and asked in a most cocktail party tone, "Don't you hate Morning Wood?" 

I found my other shoe and scampered home without looking him in the face.

A/N: My friend has a cat named Mocha...it smells really really good... Review or I detonate this bomb destroying every bookstore in North America.


	3. Pumpkin Spice Chai

A/N: Whenever our cats puke, it sits there for a few days until someone finally gives in and cleans it up. There was some on the bottom step for like…two weeks. This is related to the story, I swear. Also I stole the name Partuche from my Math Teacher, God Bless 'er. Remon Rime Grapefruit Orange. This chapter almost depresses me. There is no love at this point, so don't be all "What kind of sick excuse for a relationship is this!?"

Warning: A li'l graphic. If this gets you horny you are a SICK FUCK.

"You sure you d-don't have any money?" I stuttered into my frozen hands. My breath offered slight comfort on my frozen phalanges, absorbed into the thick cloth of my white hoodie's sleeves.

"Yeah." Craig stood, his form hanging on itself as if there was some wooden pike barely keeping up all the pieces, slouched, bored, grumpy, smoking in the clearly illegal location of your typical drug store. I tried not to gag on the scent. The fluorescent greens and pinks of the poster board before us burned my eyes—I believe all the caffeine caused me to see colors brighter than anyone else did, which sounds like a line from an upbeat pop song, but really was rather painful under situation such as these.

"Oh—kay…" I touched my pocket gingerly, testing its weight, buried my fingers in the denim and pulled out a scattered few dollars. My emergency coffee fund. "And…we need a glue stick and…"

"That colored paper."

"Construction paper." I dispersed the money across my palm, counting out enough for one café mocha. "I think I have enough." I murmured. Considering that it had been directly after school since I'd had my last hit, and most likely I wouldn't get another until mid-evening, I worried greatly over the separation of my coffee money and myself. However, worse than the idea of being without it was the idea of not having the correct supplies for the project, and being failed, and having my parents decide I'm not worth raising and sell me into slavery and auughugh!

"Cool." He grabbed a sheet of the blaringly green poster, walked a few paces, picked out a glue stick, a few more, and a stack of construction paper, like picking fruit from a vine. I had to admit; I admired the way he moved, sort of cat like, smooth motions forming all sorts of curves, unlike my polygon motions—and maybe sometimes the way he didn't move. You can define that on your own, I suppose.

I paid for the items up front, while he eyed novelty lighters lying on the rack above the various candies, and soon we were out the door.

The day was cold, which equated out to average in mountain town terms. You could see your breath hanging in the air. You see homeless people but you just don't care. Except for me, who cared deeply, considering all the horrible diseases bums harbored, not least of all mentally. Every time we passed a covered bulge on the pavement, I solidly expected the blanket to whoosh upward like Batman's cape, and some bearded man in fingerless gloves, holding a rusted knife, to shout some threat that could be avoided by emptying my pockets. Craig hopped over them.

I enviously eye two junior high girls walking out of Harbucks, warming their hands on the cardboard cup full of fake coffee-like liquids that have almost as much caffeine as the real stuff. Inside, below the green and white awnings and above little boxes of dead frozen mulch, the atmosphere looks so close and cozy and friendly, like everything's supposed to be in commercials, like everyone smiles and shows all their straight white teeth as they accept their purchases, never shown actually dispensing any money. My pocket's lightness became as noticeable as a sudden heaviness would be.

"You need to stop?"

"Huhn?" I stopped, taking the question as a command.

Craig stands in place, looking exasperated, and points with one firm finger at the door, repeating, "You need to stop?"

"Urm…I—nghhh!—don't have any more money."

"C'mon, then." One long arm reaches out and grabs mine, tugging me in. The bell dingles with a sound I normally register with excitement.

A general law of coffee shops is that if the barista is not busy, they will not be waiting patiently at the counter. "'Ey." Craig grunts at the usual college-bound guy in a green apron, who was leaning over the pick up counter and speaking with another employee. "Get me…uh…a pumpkin thing."

"Seasonal Pumpkin Spice Chai?"

"Sssure."

"Tall, Grande, or Vente?"

"Ssssure."

As the barista pulled a venti-sized cup from the stack, I leaned in and whispered, "Craig! I just told you I don't have any money!"

"S'on me." He shrugged, not making eye contact. Oh god he was going to steal it somehow Jesus Christ I don't wanna fight the law—

He dug into his back pocket and dropped a few bills and some change onto the counter. The man finishes, hands me my beverage, picks the proper amount of money out of the pile, and without asking dumps the extra coins into the tip jar.

As we left, I was overcome by confusion of the simple ritual.

"Nnng--You just said you didn't have any money!"

"I lied." His blue eyes are forward, not unfocused, but not jumping from object to object like mine do.

"What? Why d-did you spend it all on my coffee, then?"

He looks at me now. And smirks. Christ. "I like it when people owe me."

---

""How many are there now?" I ask, smearing a zigzag of clear paste onto the poster.

"Um…four."

I spun around at the coffee table, green eyes blazing. The brunette lay on the carpet, his arms forming a hoop before him containing an ancient tan guinea pig with a white stripe across it's back. He stroked it with one finger, tracing its spine with practiced accuracy; the scissors and paper abandoned some few feet to his left. Four poorly cut pink stars poke out from beneath his abdomen.

His house smelled terrible. Like sweat and ash and things that had been hidden then forgotten and left to rot. The couch had a large brownish red stain on the center and left cushion, and the floor wasn't much better. The coffee table was covered in rings. There were no coasters. There was a cat's hairball lying in the foyer, and the terrifying creature had left several pellets in the hour or so it had been out. And, after forcing me into this environment, he didn't even bother to work. I got as close to anger as I can typically get.

"Craig! This is due—errgh--Monday! I agreed to put it off this long, but you have to help me, or else, um, I'll tell Mr. Partuche that I had to do it all myself!" All of this was said like a bad actor attempting to imitate rage. I can't yell at Butters—how the hell am I supposed to show any balls in front of uber terrifying Craig?

And, to prove that my mini rant was a bad idea in the smallest and Craigliest way possible, he smiled. And narrowed his slightly almond-shaped eyes. And continued to pet his rodent, like some sort of evil doctor rocket scientist monster with capabilities to destroy the entire universe petting his white Persian.

"Tweeeek…you wanna pay me back now?"

"I'm not gonna do the whole project by myself!"

He staggers to his feet. Rodent sits like a potato on the carpet, dead black eyes boring into my freaking soul. My memory plays it back in third person. Tweek Tweak, sixteen-year-old…well…nut, I guess, sits between dirty coffee table and dirty couch. Green eyes like quarters. Blonde troll doll hair. Craig, sixteen year old who's taken over two hundred hours of unsuccessful anger management therapy, of unbelievably calm dark blue eyes and longer black hair that runs straight and soft, fitting to his head like a hat, trickling onto his neck and with a short waterfall of ebony on his forehead. Takes three long, uneven steps like a zombie, falls onto the couch, laying across its length on his stomach, and breathes gently on my ear.

---

_I didn't love him. I didn't want him any more or less than I wanted anything with a pulse. He was there, he had a warm hole or two, and I knew he didn't have it in him to be raped—oh, how to explain that. It was like depriving food from an anorexic. I knew quite well if I made a move on him, he would go along with it. He wouldn't like it, but he wouldn't fight it. And there was something vaguely attractive about the way his eyes wobbled as if he was on the verge of tears as he attempted top stand up to me. It was laughable. A puppy nibbling on your fingers. That's what he was—a puppy. No matter how hard he tried, he could never hurt anyone, and never purposely make anyone mad. Sure, he tore up your shoes, but he would whimper and cry until you forgave him out of pity._

_So why not, I thought. What the hell, I thought. It was like masturbation, only a little writhier, and a little noisier. I wanted a warm hole, and he had two, so I made a move on him._

_I had to work up to it, or else he might be traumatized. I may not have cared for him much then, but I didn't want to destroy him inside. I crawled slowly up to the couch, smiling at his pitifully unromantic little deer in the headlights expression. I felt him twitch and squeak as I wrapped my arms around his chest, licked his earlobe like Kenny used to do, God that guy was a worthwhile lay back before he settled down—reached down the collar of his XS hoodie and touched and stroked and fondled. You wouldn't have been able to pull a needle out of anywhere on his body with a tractor. He wanted to run, I knew, but I didn't care. _

_"Tweek, you're still a virgin, aren't you?"_

_If "!" could be made into a sound that's what noise he was making. _

_"That's not normal anymore. I'm" suck gently on the ear lobe "gonna make you normal. Kay?" And I laughed. At the absurdity of my statement. Like I fucking cared about what others thought of him, what he thought of himself, like my intentions were to help anyone but myself. Myself and Li'l Speed Racer. (If anyone asked, his name was Li'l Craig.) And that was enough to scare the piss out of him. Literally. I saw a dark liquid spot on his jeans, and my first thought was, "Did he jizz or something? Then I realized. Tweek had peed his pants._

_This I hadn't expected. I gaped, I started to say something ("E—") and was stopped because there was nothing I could think to say. I mean, who does that? Whose first reaction to fear isn't to run away but to pee? Li'l Speed Racer didn't fall but certainly stopped in place. Finally, in a question that Bill Engvall would reply with an irritating "here's your sign," I asked, "Did you fucking piss your pants?"_

_Another noise that could only be expressed in punctuation popped from his throat._

_"Dude, what the fuck? You _pissed_ yourself?" I sat up on the couch now, scratched my head, baffled beyond any idea of what to do about this. I hadn't seen a sober person do that since kindergarten. _You have to clean him up. And the carpet.

_"Err…take your pants off."_

_"Wha-at?" He was alive again, whipping around to stare with eyes that almost made me feel bad. Almost._

_" No, dick, are you gonna stay in them?" He looked like a badly drawn flipbook picture. Never in the same place for more than an eighteenth of a second. I wanted to hurt him and fuck him—not at the same time. "I'm going to wash them."_

_His expression softened. He worked his arms like one does when attempting to stand, but his legs stayed Indian-style. He tried again. Then he hung his head. "My legs…are…arrgh!…locked up…or something." Defeat beyond defeat. No way I felt bad for him, no fucking way._

_I untangled his legs manually. I led him to the laundry room, where he changed into a pair of pajama pants and dropped his piss-stained jeans into the machine. I set it going. And he lay down in my bed and cried a little out of shame. And I lied down beside him and was his big brother, and told him it was okay, and gave little touches and reassurances until he submitted._

_Tweek arches his back and whimpers in the cutest way when you fuck him gentle._

A/N: Remember kids, if you're ever being raped and are too nervous to say no, pee your pants! Fluff ends after this chapter. I rambled forever, but with creative things I don't feel like I have any control—like that guy writing Revelations. I'm not making this up; I'm just documenting it. :3 South Park Movie rocks. MCS rocks. Roseanne used to rock when I was thirteen. (I made up Pumpkin Spice Chai, ands my dad took me to Starbucks today and I saw it on the menu. I was like, ":O") Please tell me if you think this is over the top or if you understand why I had to make it like this. Or maybe I'm just a little pussy who's gotten too used to stories so soft you should jump off the Empire State Building and land in a pile of it and not be hurt.


	4. Red Wine

A/N: Some guy on gaia told me that…er…Tweek's problem was vaguely logical. If not, I have creative freedom, you gaiz!

Age nine. First Male-on-Female kiss. Recipient; Lizzy.

Age ten. First Male-on-Male kiss. Recipient; Thomas.

Age fourteen. First Male-on-Male bang. Recipient; Clyde.

Age fifteen. First Male-on-Female bang. Recipient; Porsche.

That's as much of it as I really remember. It's not like I keep a journal or something of all my romantic escapades. "Oh Em Gee diary, today I TOTALLY kissed Token!" That's not how I fucking roll. These are just things you sort of know whether you want to or not, like your mom's middle name, or the names of characters from shows you watched when you were a kid.

I loved Lizzy. I loved her bitchiness, her filthy mouth, her constant chiding at my enemies. I envied Thomas, because of his invincibility. I liked Clyde, because he's not annoying, or stupid, or ugly, or talkative. I wanted to pound Porsche in the face with a shovel, but she was there, and her ass looked nice in aqua blue hot pants. The point of this little soliloquy is to make note of the fact that I stopped caring at some point. I didn't like anyone because I couldn't find any traits I especially preferred, and if I gave myself an opinion, I would probably dislike myself just as much as the rest of them. Humanity as a whole kind of sucked ass. This was the period when I started to drink even when I was alone, and had sex every day. (Well, almost.)

I had a C average. I hadn't been arrested yet. I had a dad who never noticed a few missing bottles from the liquor cabinet. I had a multitude of fuck buddies. I was a rock star in my own eyes.

And, damn it all, I had to fall asleep.

I had to decide I wanted some shaky little Tweek ass. I walked over to his house, assured that there were no adults within shouting distance, and didn't so much lead as drag him upstairs. I fucked him hard, 'til he was yelling at me to stop, but I assumed it was just like when you yell at your dentist to stop. I stopped when I wanted to stop, pulled out, rolled over, and instead of nabbing my clothes and getting the fuck out of there, I fell asleep. Tweek did not. Tweek went to get coffee.

I woke up sometime around seven. After waking in strange houses so many times, the natural reaction of "Where am I?" no longer popped into my head. The atmosphere was still. The house was silent. All stark contrasts between the typical building housing Tweek Tweak. Curious, but not alarmed, I climbed from the bed, located the vital articles of clothing, and went to explore around a little. With destinations chosen by logic, it didn't take me long to find him. Target one, kitchen. Most notably the area around the coffee maker.

Upon walking in, my eyes cast to the only movement in the room. Tweek lay on the ground, shaking at an alarming speed—I registered an idea that had he not been Tweek he would still be shaking—his body curled in on itself, face buried in the empty space between the bottom of the cabinets and the linoleum floor. His breathing was compromised of sharp intakes of inhaling alternated with longer exhales.

"Wh…what are you doing?"

Of course no answer.

"Tweek, look at me—say something." I fell to my knees beside him, unceremoniously grabbed his shoulders and flipped him onto his back. His eyes were open, as was his mouth, and he looked conscious, albeit as if pain incomprehensible was ripping across his body. Sweat rolled down his face like you only see in movies. Panicked, I flew to my feet, and began an irksome search for a phone—luckily, Tweek had laid his on the table. I fumbled with it, wasted precious moments waiting for the screen to show some sign of life, and pounded in the three famous numbers as if exerting more pressure would make it go through faster.

I rode in the ambulance, where he dry heaved as if attempting to eradicate his organs from his mouth. They fixed him up with an oxygen tank. "Has he to your knowledge taken any drugs recently?" "Do you know a number where we can reach his parents?" "His REAL name." I didn't remember speaking to any of them, but I must have, considering they somehow found answers. Tweek sure as hell wasn't telling them.

The hospital was clean and white and so incredibly bright it was blinding. He lay like a dying bird on his gurney, a troubled look on his pale face. I had to jog to keep up with the gloved men (and one woman, seemingly thrown in for sexual diversity—that sort of thought seemed highly inappropriate, but ever present, I suppose I should watch less TV,) shoving him down the hall.

"Go back and wait in the waiting room, you're in the way.." A doctor with a square chin and a four-day beard barked, batting me away like a cat. I slowed my pace to a walk, to a halt, then, what else could I do, followed the dark blue plaques to the waiting room.

It was every hospital in the world's waiting room. No windows, scratchy, sturdy, low to the ground chairs, a paralyzing fear of making eye contact with anyone else. Therefore, I studied my shoes with the intensity of a scientist studying paramecium through a microscope. This got rather tiresome after the first four seconds or so, but what else could be done?

Mr. and Mrs. Tweek arrived after a half an hour of sneaker meditation, wearing fancy clothes and smelling like red wine. In sitcoms, everyone who's unimportant sits quietly in chairs and reads magazines while the family runs up, arms swinging, demanding questions in loud voices. It didn't happen like that in real life.

I felt a touch on the top of my head. And the scent of red wine.

"Are you Tweek's little friend?" Mr. Tweek asked in his insanely smooth voice. I wanted to punch him in the face. I seem to have that feeling a lot.

"Yeah."

A weirdly hot—no, calm--Mrs. Tweek shuffled her way up to the line before the receptionist's desk.

"We can't thank you enough for saving our boy."

"Kay."

"You see, Tweek had a heart attack."

"What." I said, rather than asked.

"I know, we usually just think of fat, middle aged men having heart attacks. But it seems Tweek has some problem that we don't…quite…understand." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he trailed off.

The answer seemed fairly obvious, considering they were pumping him full of coffee like you pump a car with gas.

"This is the second one he's had." He continued. "We didn't figure it'd be a recurring problem."

I felt a sudden surge of dislike for this man that I couldn't explain. Something bittersweet, ruing him for something he had done. Or was doing. And of course this brought on further confusion. I had thought all my emotions had crawled into a corner and died somewhere.

"Would you like a ride home?" The velvet man asked, gesturing gently.

"Um…don't you have stuff to do around here?"

"Oh, Mrs. Tweak is taking care of the paper work All there's left to do around here is wait for news." He smiled earnestly.

"…Nah…I'll hang out here for a bit…"

-----

Oh God. Why was I so stressed out? They asked me again and again; drugs, diet, exercise, stress. Stress. Stress. I knew why I was so stressed out. I lied, said I didn't, and probably that would make me die in the long run, but I'd rather die than tell the probing doctors and faux-maternal nurses that I was stressed out because I was in love.

Isn't there a better phrase than "in love"? I don't want to sound like a poet impersonating depth. They ruined all the good phrases that actually mean something. "I need you." "I want to be with you. "I'm in love." "Mom, Dad, I'm in love with a man." Okay, so that last one wasn't very poetic, and I most certainly did not need another manner of saying it in. Any connotation would be equally terrifying.

I'm not stupid. I knew he didn't love me at all. I was pretty certain he loathed me, but liked the fact that I had a willing butt hole. If that was what he wanted, that's what he got. I would do anything to receive his attention. Why? He told me to shut up, he sometimes punched and bit and slammed me into things, he never called before coming over and once he finished cumming in me (he refused to pull out beforehand,) he left, sometimes without saying a word. So why did I love him? Because I was stupid and desperate, I think. It might've had nothing to do with him at all.

So, I fell in love. And that was the straw that broke the anxiety-riddled camel's back. He fell asleep, and I watched him for a second. There was nothing beautiful about his resting from. He lay on his side, mouth wide open, leaking saliva onto my pillow, making grunting noises. I watched him for almost ten minutes. I felt like crying. I got my fill of his presence, even if it was involuntary, and headed down stairs for my favorite vice. Then it hit, like a natural disaster. Chest pains, check. Pain in the left arm, check. Shortness of breath, check. And bang, I was down.

Maybe just the romantic phrasing influenced me, but my love was multiplied when he became my guardian angel.

"Wake up."

I heard a low moan and felt a vibration in my throat, which I imagine must've meant that the noise came from me. The world was bright to a cruel degree, all white and yellow and sea foam green and one smudge of cool dark blue. My vision shimmered, caught focus, and settled into a normal display. I was in a hospital room. Yellow morning sunshine spilled in thick rays from the misaligned Venetian blinds, casting the room into the same warm-tinted shade. But that part was boring. What caught my attention was Craig, Craig, Craig, standing over me, looking pissed off but, eh, what was I to expect.

"You douche bag, how the fuck does a seventeen year old kid have a heart attack?"

I cleared my throat. "Well, auugh, I didn't mean to…er…"

"You scared the hell out of me."

Scared?

"I was worried as shit."

Worried?

"Your parents are probably gonna want to see you—tell them you woke up on your own. I'll be back in a minute. You are such a stupid—" The door snapped shut as he left, cutting off the rest of his mutterings.

They told me not to get too excited about anything. Damn, I was already ignoring their orders.

A/N: Okay, okay, I'm sorry, this is…this is just terrible. I didn't want people to forget me. ;; But I got out what I wanted to say, hoorah! ILU people, please please please review, even if you're just shouting about how much I suck and should die, it keeps the voices away.


	5. Decaf Coffee

"See ya Bebe!"

"Bye-ee!"

Their voices carry well on the crisp, fragile air, echoing off of the rooftop of trees and the frozen layer of snow covering the ground. The footsteps are uneven—some of them break the surface of hard ice, some stand atop it. 

A stone's throw away, a shivering, twitching, "nngh!"ing form sits on his haunches, obscured mostly by a large snow bearing coniferous bush. He's dressed warmly in an air force blue scarf, olive drab hooded sweatshirt, dark green jeans and snow-soaked black vans, and still he shivers violently, his extended gloved hands, looking as if they are prepared to grab something between them, wiggle and shake at the end of his thin wrists.

"Jesus Christ, what do I do…?" he mutters under his breath.

The girl who recently dispersed from her frizzy haired friend turns quickly to look over her shoulder, her long curtain of inky black hair whipping across the other shoulder. With pert, nymphic steps she hops toward the source of the words. Her chocolate brown eyes survey the scene splayed beneath the thorned branches of the plant; familiar blonde distressing over an abandoned birds nest bearing three unharmed cream-colored eggs poking up from atop a small bank of snow.

"Oh, a nest!" She exclaims in falsetto, clasping yellow hands beneath her chin.

"Yagh!" The boy throws himself forward in standard duck-and-cover posture, narrowly missing the eggs and thoroughly wetting his abdomen on the snow. A birdsong laugh rouses his trust enough to peer over his shoulder with one yellowy green eye.

There stands a ten-year-old Wendy Testaburger, the white winter sun eclipsed by her head, creating a halo of light that fascinated young prepubescent Tweek Tweak.

"Did you find that there?" She asks, falling to her knees in the snow beside the blonde.

"Um—Yeah—er—but it's so cold!? I thought birds were supposed to come in Spring!? And where's their mom!? Wh—what if they die? Then it'll be all my fault! But I can't pick—"

"It is awfully cold for them to survive…it's April, though, so I suppose this WOULD be the time for eggs to be laid, even if it's really really cold." She shrugged, disturbing a long, straight lock of raven from her back to fall into her face, which had leaned close to their study subject.

"But if I pick them up to move them inside or something then their mom won't come and feed them!"

"That's right—don't touch them. Your scent will scare off the mom."

Young Tweek pouted at the girl for a moment; he disliked being retold the lesson he'd grown up knowing. Not to mention all the diseases they surely carried. Bird flu? No thank you. "I—erk—thought of using a space heater or blow dryer or something to warm them up, y'know? But, what if it's WAY too hot and they BOIL or something!?"

In expected small girl fashion, she seems disgusted by the idea of boiling baby birds, but does not appear to blame Tweek for his somewhat frightening mind. Nobody did; it was considered to be as socially acceptable as pushing Jimmy to the floor.

"Well…how about this?" She pulls the lilac hat from her head, lifts the nest through her yellow glove, and sets it back down inside the hat. "My dad and I volunteer down at the wildlife conservation center in Denver. I can bring them there, and they'll take care of them." She smiles. Her rouged cheeks bunch above the corners of her upturned lips, turning her fallow brown eyes into optimistic half-moons.

Forty-five minutes previously, Tweek followed the small crowd of fifth grade boys toward the lot where the busses park. He makes no attempt at joining conversations, but drifts between listening to those around him; Stan and Kyle are laughing as they discuss the teacher, Cartman lectures Kenny on how if he wasn't so god damn poor he could afford new video games, like the one he got last night, Clyde and Craig are discussing which is better; some woman named Flora in a nurse uniform or butt naked.

With a disgusted look on his face at Cartman's reprimands, Kenny breaks away from the group. "I gotta take a piss." He states.

"Why didn't you do that inside?" Kyle asks.

"A man has a right to piss where he wants. It's not natural to pee inside. Since the dawn of time, man has--" He finds a position behind a bush. "Oh, hey, a birds nest." He undoes his zipper quickly.

"B-birds nest?" Tweek stutters, his head springing forward in a surprised motion. The fifth graders around him seem vaguely shocked by his sudden vocal display. "Does it have eggs?"

Kenny smiles his apathetically attractive smile. "Yeah. Three."

With a pert hop and toddling bendy straw legs, Tweek maneuvers his way from the belly of the crowd to the fellow blonde's side, attacking one lock of hair.

"See anything you like?" Kenny asks, one caustic eyebrow raised, before restoring his member to its home and closing the door. The twitching kid ignores the comment, favoring instead to perch over the nest and stare with fiery, faltering intensity.

"'Sup?"

"It's so cold out! H—how are they gonna survive!?"

Kenny is silent for a moment, eyes wide and mouth small in typical surprised manner, before uttering a noise in the back of his throat that is vaguely reminiscent of a clogged drain. "It'll be fine, Tweek."

"Kenny! C'mon!" Kyle's impatient voice rises over the opposite side of the bush.

"Yeah!"

Tweek is left alone, kneeling by the side of the school wall, observing the eggs and occasionally muttering, "Jesus Christ, what do I do?"

---------

"Craig! You're gonna get kicked out."

He suddenly became aware of the actions of his hands raising a lighter to a cigarette poking from his lips. "Hn? Damn it…" He tossed the lighter roughly toward my night stand, upsetting an empty glass and sending it to the floor. The bed springs moaned as he lowered himself onto a part not fenced in by white railing.

"You should quit smoking."

The room had become my home these past few days. On the small, empty drawer sat my coffee maker from home, half full with cold, black, decaf coffee. My clothes lay scattered in miscellaneous order around the home base of a sturdy blue and black suitcase, lying in the corner by the door. To the wall was tacked a long list of things I was to avoid, every one highlighted. About an hour after the nurse had given it to me, Craig had went through with a highlighter and marked off all of the activities that applied to me. When looking it over, I realized he'd made special care to let the world know I should especially abstain from Sexual Activity.

"Craig!" I had hissed, flinging my legs of the side of the bed and sitting up with a large whoosh of blood leaving my skull suddenly.

"What?" He was currently nursing the remote with a disgusted look directed at the poor quantity and quality of channels.

"I—erk—don't want my parents to know…y'know…about u-us!" I stabbed the offending pink ink with my finger.

"You're such a fag." He grumbled, although I could see the affectionate smile across his face. He tore it from my hand, and proceeded to highlight every one.

It was the weirdest thing. Such a stupid…well…stupid for him, not so much for me—thing had shown me a completely new and completely confusing Craig. I'd made a mental note of all things that made me want to ask questions.

Number one; there was a sudden decrease in personal contact. Which sounded bad but wasn't. Whereas before, if he didn't have something jammed in me, his hand was glued to something else on my body, (unless, of course, we were around people, under which circumstances he gave me no more attention than a piece of lint on his shirt,) now, other than an occasional poke or prod in situations under which before he would've punched or slapped me, times in which he fell asleep in my bed ("We're real good friends, Mom and Dad,") and the shocking, rare, elusive hug, he didn't seem interested in touching me more often than necessary.

Number two; a general drop in harshness and intimidation. We were…laughing together? He was…_smiling at me_? It was like a lucid dream. I remember on the second day or so, I dropped a mug, allowing it to shatter. I turned up to Craig like a baby after hitting its head, waiting to see how I should gauge my reaction based on his, and was nonplussed to see him smiling and shaking his heads in an "Oh you" way. He told me to hold the dustpan while he swept it up, and there were no more words said on the subject. Did I mention he was sleeping in my bed?

Number three, his…presence. He was THERE. Unless he was at school, or it was one of the three or so showers he took at home the week we were there, he was with me, in the hospital, walking with me to the cafeteria, watching the tiny, mediocre TV, playing Uno with me or reading one of my many books in the "How to Survive A…" series. When my parents with there late, and he felt awkward crawling into their son's bed while they watched, he curled up in two arm chairs pushed together to make a little cushion boat. Otherwise, without hesitation, my bed was his, despite the incredibly small size. Usually we formed a small yin yang, more than half my body laying across the pillow while my legs hung down at the proper angle, albeit my knees bent, while he lay his head somewhere around my stomach and curled his legs up so that the convex of his knees fixed with the concave of mine.

I…I really like sleeping with someone else in the bed.

Number four; his phone remained turned off the entire time. He never tried to talk with or text anyone else when I was around, never left to go be with someone better, never left for some quick ass then returned once he was satisfied. Which meant Craig had gone without doin' it for a week. I hadn't really considered that as a possibility.

Number five;

He had lain down on the bed, across my legs. "I've been smoking since I was about twelve, dude. It'd be a little hard to stop now." He shrugged, reached up and began to finger a lock of blonde hair hanging into my face.

I raised my brows. "But what if you get cancer and die?"

"Not what if; what about when. Besides, who wants to be fifty anyway?" He smiled, tugged on the lock of hair a little bit for no reason I could discern, and let his hand drop. "You're being discharged tomorrow, right?"

"Mm-hm." It was like going home after a long vacation; you begin to forget what home is like, and confuse your current situation for home. I desperately wished to stay in hospital even just a little bit longer; play just a few more games of Uno, eat just a couple more vanilla pudding cups off of plastic spoons, take just a few more naps. I no longer smelled Craig's scent. The smell of home would probably be overbearingly adult and air-freshener-esque.

"I love you, Tweeker."

That's number five.

"I love you too." I blushed cherry red, averted my eyes so he couldn't see the pure crack rock of bliss swimming in them. Oh boy was I sincere about my reply.

"Hey, after we graduate, would you wanna move in with me? Before you leave for college? It's pretty small shitty, I could cover the rent on my own. You gotta do housewife shit though."

"Are you serious?" My bladder suddenly felt full. I leaned forward, my eyes wide and my mouth tiny.

"Yeah, I'm kickin' my old mate out…fucker never paid the god damn rent, I ended up covering for both of us, but if I'm gonna pay rent for two, why not do it with someone who cleans up after himself?" I knew by now that Craig spoke in code. By saying "why not" he meant, "I want this badly". By saying I could clean up after myself, he meant "someone I really like."

I felt like someone who had just been proposed to. I wanted to cry and throw myself into his arms, despite the fact that if I were to do that I would need to bend in ways that would kill me.

"Yeah! Gggh--That s-sounds—ngh—great!" I force myself to say through the onomatopoeia noises of excitement erupting from the back of my throat.

"Great." He smiles, and my heart both freezes and melts.

A/N: NOBODY probably got the point of the Wendy bit. :/ You know you're a terrible writer if you have to explain yourself as much as I do…basically Tweek is in love with human contact. People who don't label him sub-human because of his irritating energy. Wendy paid attention to him, didn't just ignore his worries because he's Tweek, so nothing he says matters. Craig's sexual interest in him was the same—somebody considered that he was useful, that he was sensible and a person who wasn't just someone to invite to fill up empty space. Tweek's pretty unhleathy like that. He doesn't make the connection so he can't slap some sense into himself. But it's starting to work out? Also this is the first chapter that hints toward any of the original plan. Originally this was gonna be a one-shot about…well…what's gonna occur from now until the end. LONG ASS AUTHOR'S NOTE.


	6. Sour Raspberry

A/N: Now it's kinda like real love. It's a good thing they happened to mesh with each other, despite the fact that various complexes brought them together. Needs more insight on Craig's part, though…damn it…wanted to mention that before they reached status quo in the hoppitle…

Stan Marsh had started out the night thinking only of Wendy Testaberger, Certainly, other people would be thrown into the equation, but they were simply a ruse—another component of the overly-planned escapades that would inevitably lead to a secret world underneath a frilly pink bra.

However, harmlessly tossing in everyone that was simply expected to be in any group situation—Kyle, Kenny, Cartman, Craig, Token, Clyde, Tweek, Bebe, and Jimmy, to be needlessly specific—he had overlooked one fact that he had no means of looking at, considering he had no idea.

It took him three tries (meaning two otherwise unnecessary showers) to apply the right amount of cologne. An hour of sleeplessness to pick out the movie. And a lifetime of little learned tricks to choreograph into every possible situation.

All to sit at the end of the couch and listen to Tweek and Craig noisily suck face.

Talk about a mood killer for a horny eighteen-year-old boy.

-

Later on I think I must have made it all seem easier in my mind. I must've repressed memories of peeling off my clothes to inspect roadmaps of bruises, or cried in corners as he shouted expletives at me, or…well…something. But all I can think of are memories like curling up on his filthy couch to watch Red Racer, or sharing an ice cream cone and frightening uptight mothers shielding sticky children from their first experience of public faggotry, or flirty post-coital pillow talk on rainy afternoons.

I recall a morning after one of the exponentially increasing sleepovers at Craig's now roommate-deficient apartment (a tiny world of musky Mexican blankets, poor lighting, a storage plan that could only seem adequate in a nineteen year old boy's mind, and an overpowering lingering scent of pot,) waltzing happily into my house pre-dawn, given that a reckless afternoon of experimentation had worn the two of us out so heartily we both passed out sometime around 5:30 in the afternoon. With Craig's hand tucked into my back pocket and my arm looped around his waist, it was a bit of a shock to see my mother sitting on the couch, legs crossed sternly, fully dressed and bathed in the white-blue light of those infomercials that play in that time frame in which early or late is debatable.

I stared, wide eyed, frozen in her nonchalant gaze, hearing distantly Craig muttering "Shit" and giving a "well, you caught us!" chuckle. He didn't understand the direness of the situation.

Turns out I didn't. She gave a surprisingly youthful smile, uncurled herself from the couch, pulled me into a hug, patted Craig on top of his cobalt hat, and walked upstairs without a sound, leaving us alone with an excited canned voice declaring the limited-time price of a needlessly durable blender.

"Craig, ergh, stop it!"

His grey eyes pondered me bitterly, exploring the bulge in his cheek with his tongue. His torn face shifted to a cynical pout, and he spit out the crumpled nicotine patch. "These aren't fucking strong enough. Ugh." He rubbed his tongue on one of his sleeves, trying to wipe away the taste.

I peer into the box held in a cradle made of my knees and my chest. Craig's insistence that his signs of withdrawal are due to misuse of the patches had depleted our supply to less than ten. I watch him as he shoves the wet patch up his nose, now just trying to annoy me.

Slowly things had shifted, migrated around in his domicile in some weird bastard child of Feng Shui and baby proofing. The claustrophobic, dark atmosphere had been replaced—furniture pushed up against walls to allow wide-open spaces that didn't slowly crawl inward the longer you settled amongst them. Turns out since moving in he hadn't changed a single bulb. We bought something resembling a large egg carton full of the spiral-shaped energy saving sort, and spent an hour or so tallying and remedying all the many unused lighting fixtures. Vanilla scented candles perched like cream-colored song birds on various surfaces, no longer of use now that the green beans and pepper scent of his old roommate's ganja had been burned away. It had become more like a first home than a second.

"S'not fair." Craig grumbled, pulling the patch from his nostril with a face reflecting almost sexual pleasure from the sensation. "Why is it you get to keep your vices but I have to fix mine?"

"My v-vices?"

"Coffee."

"Coffee doesn't cause cancer!"

"Everything causes cancer." My boyfriend snorted, crumpling the now very filthy patch and tossing it into the empty garbage bin.

"…I need it." I blush, bringing my chin close to my collarbone.

Craig tugged at one of the rubber bands resting loosely around his wrist. 'Whatever makes you happy."

This was all in April. In early June, we would graduate, and, free of distractions, we would spend our days enjoying each other's presence and bodies freely, no longer restricted by my need to keep of the façade of my home being with my parents. They had given their blessing, insisted on paying half the rent, promised to assist in packing, classic emptying nest behavior with an odd quirk.

But my perfect life, part romance novel, part Motion City song, was drawing to a close.

-

There are two types of people in the world when it comes to cute things. Or more like, the normal, and the weird blips and mutations that come from sick people like me. Normal people see cute things, and they go aww, and they want to touch and protect and hug and love. And then there are the freaks that see something cute, and it…I don't know…fills them with some sort of lukewarm rage. People who want to push over people on crutches, or who get some sick pleasure out of scaring little kids, or who have the urge to hurt animals that are just too small and innocent. The more we love something, care for it, the more we need to hurt it. It's a paradox I've often thought of bringing to a professional.

Through the years I met more people with my mindset, all who either warded people off with their douche baggery or with fear. I knew I was in the latter group, although I don't claim to have never had my douche moments.

Tweek never spotted the little things I did to assure his safety. I wore rubber bands around my wrists at all times, and whenever my head began to feel hot, and my fingers curled stiff like built up calcium, I tugged one of them out, and let it snap back with a sharp, awakening pain. My fingers were covered in raw pink bruises, semi circles of indents reflecting the still slightly crooked shape of my bottom teeth. And after all those years of braces.

I knew it was all crashing down. One sunny afternoon, Tweek fell asleep under the naked shelter of my ugly sheets, and how puppy-like he slept, his little head lolling back and forth with each breath slightly edged with a raspy little snore, drooling slightly. I grabbed the baseball bat from beside my bed and wandered back into the yard, where the dumpsters were kept. Packed white trash bags rested like bloated seals aside the bins. I stared for a moment, shoved all the feelings into tight rods in my arms. With a grunt of rage, I shunted the bat into the air above my head pulled it down, hearing the satisfying texture of crushing glass and rotten food under the loose swing. In rapid succession, I vented my (sexual? emotional?) frustration, each blow amazingly cathartic. For Tweek.

I stopped. Dropped the bat to the gravel. What did it mean? Were the trash bags some sort of stand-in for Tweek? Did I want to kill him? Of course not, the top layer of my psyche insisted. So why did love make me so fucking angry?

The trash bag lay with a deep concave rut dug into its guts. Its many holes were leaking a greasy, rancid scented liquid. Somewhere in a traitorous location of my mind, Tweek lay, his stomach slashed vertically from his sternum to his groin, bleeding blood laced with droplets of grease, curled in on himself. Torn between the two planes I stand, my weapon, my enabler, lying, realized for the villain that it is, dejected, near my feet. I pull out my pack and smoke three in quick succession that makes my heart ache independently from my body.

I used to do Clyde. A lot, actually. He was a pretty sick fuck, and so was I. However, unlike most of us, he was never a fan of hard alcohol. So while the rest of us threw change at Kenny as he gave lap dances to recliners, Craig, Butters, and Tweek would sit and watch from the sidelines, giggling and sipping things that looked pretty and tasted good. Pussies.

Wan from my recent inner dilemma, I saw Jimmy's party as an excellent excuse to get hammered and forget for a while. On the drive over we listened to the sort of techno you really can't enjoy to its intended level if not on X. Tweek never realized, but something about the plinks and boops caught his twitches into a repetitive beat that matched that of the song, a caffeine addict's fucked up version of tapping toes. I gnawed my thumb.

Jimmy's house was dark inside. I held a quivering hand, tugging its attached bulk through the throbbing wall people, playing martyr by parting the crowd with my own body before pulling him through the brief gap.

Craig stood beside Cartman, looking slightly bored, holding something kool-aide blue in a plastic cup.

"Hey." He shifted his brown eyes to stare at me with the grave intensity he always emitted unconsciously, making me feel as if I was being watched rather than looked at. "Watch my Tweek for me, will you? I wanna get wrecked."

"Kay."

"Don't let anyone spike his drink."

Tweek appeared indignant. I would probably have knifed someone in the stomach if I were being spoken about like a mother telling a baby sitter not to let her child eat legos. I ignored his bratty aura, planted a kiss on his forehead, and disappeared to fulfill my own disgusting earthly wants

.-

"Want some?" Craig asked me, tipping his electric blue beverage in my direction. It smelled fruity and sweet, like candy. Like a blue Jolly Rancher.

I watched the last of Craig disappear as a pretty girl and a dumpy girl walked in a path intersecting his own, barring him from my view. The room was too dark and claustrophobic. A hazy mixture of various smoke drifted above our heads, visible only in small halos around pink, blue, green, and red Christmas lights snaked across anything that duct tape would stick to.

"Okay. What is it?"

I could use some depressants in my system.

"Sour Raspberry. It's great." Clyde smiled. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't look, but stare.

A/N: Oh man, Craig and I are one. When I watch South Park I lay on my back, pull my knee up to my mouth, and bite down HARD to suppress the urge to destroy things that arises whenever anything vaguely inciting happens. I'm a sick girl. I would get down on my knees and beg for reviews, but it still kinda hurts from The List.


	7. Blood

A/N: Download "Inertiatic ESP" by The Mars Volta, guys. ;3 The mood is nothing like what was intended for this, and neither are the lyrics. Yay! I wanted to write some shit about Craig's life pre-Tweek, but I kinda want this one to stand alone…CLIMAX TIME! Anyone who didn't know there would be a chapter called Blood is dumb.

It was sour. I like sour things—they're sort of snap at you, wake you up. I stood by the wall, had a short conversation with Token, Bebe, and my chaperone, who firmly insisted that I get a refill once I drained the plastic cup to its dregs.

At eleven thirty, I attempted to sidle into a less populated area of my designated wall, and barely managed to catch myself on my hands and knees on the floor. I was nauseously dizzy. I put off the effects as drunkenness over my two very low-alcohol content drinks. Clyde helped me to my feet. I have difficulty remembering things, probably wouldn't have any disjointed memory of them at all had it not so deeply impacted my life.

"Here you go." He said, almost chidingly, as I managed to get my legs beneath me. I instantly slid into him, resting my head between his neck and shoulder and not speaking. "You're sleepy, aintcha? Yeah. Let's find you a bed."

I closed my eyes and let myself be led; bumping into people and furniture as I went, and only stopped once I had been shoved back first down onto a springy mattress. Too familiar to be déjà vu.

"Craigh…" I slurred, staring up at Clyde in a way I thought was meaningful, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about.

"Craig's busy." He said, mistaking my attempt to share an anecdote as a request. He turned his back to me, eradicated the rectangle of light created by the open door, and with a loud click, I recognized the door being locked. Too inebriated to find concern, I simply rolled onto my side and closed my eyes in attempt to sleep.

There was silence for a moment. Clyde pinched my arm. I didn't care. He insisted, loudly, "Tweek." I didn't care. He pulled off his shoes using the opposite foot, and undid his belt buckle. Jeans hit the floor with a loud thump.

Gently, he lifted my hips slightly, reducing the friction of my own pants against the mattress. I was confused, tired, dizzy, and didn't quite remember why I was lying on top of the covers instead of on them, thinking I must be in Craig's house or my own. He tugged my pants down to my knees, and lay me down on my back.

--

Adequately drunk, I began my search for my Tweek, like one trying to find their coat, batting away people offering me joints or sloppy sex. Once assured that no one had seen him for a half an hour or so, I turn my search to the second story.

The upstairs was quiet. Too early for people to be searching for places to crash. I tried the first door—laundry room—second door—a slight resistance. I figured it was jammed, and threw my shoulder against it. The poorly made lock snapped.

I opened the door in a manner that cast an acute triangle of light to the direct left of the opening—just enough to peek my head through. At the first sight of a sweaty, gasping lump on Jimmy's bed, I began to close the door. However, from the lump rose a sound—it went "Nngh!" I swear to fucking God.

Downstairs, the song blared. "Now I'm lo-ost…now I'm lo-ost…"

My palms felt sopping wet. I grabbed at my ass, felt the hard, metallic lump in my pocket, and tugged it out. A box cutter, thrown in in case of a fight I didn't think I could win, a habit I'd taken on when I was roughly nine. I extended the blade as kicked the door, hard—sending it crashing into the opposite wall.

Clyde faltered, turned to face me over my shoulder, me and my fucking box cutter, and his soulless brown eyes dilated in concern for his life. He pulled out, leaving Tweek crumpled on the mattress and breathing as if he had run a marathon, half-walked half-ran to his jeans and pulled them up over his bare hipbones, shaking heavily.

"Craig." He said in a tone that suggested he wanted to reason with me. "Craig, you'll go to fucking jail, man. That's fucking assault." His fear caused him to use the most addictive of swears heavily.

I didn't care about going to fucking jail at this point.

I lunged forward, extending the weapon-wielding arm in preparation for its target, but he threw himself to the side, hitting the bed and tumbling over Tweek, who had ceased movement. He scrambled to his feet and made for the door, closer to me—I met him halfway, hitting him above his left eye.

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, MAN!" He shrieked, clamping his hand down over the long, thin wound extending to his skull. In his shock, I managed to get him once more—this time, in a softer area—into the ribs. At first, I hit bone, but slid the blade down, sinking it deeply into the flesh.

At this point I overpowered him, knocking him to the ground and resting over him on my knees, repeatedly stabbing him in any area that I could find, as well as the floor—it didn't matter if it was Clyde, or the carpet, or Tweek, or me, I had to rid myself of the anger, vent all of the emotions through violence, hurt, destroy….

Clyde was silent now. I sat up, still holding the blade, poised and ready for attack, but he didn't seem quite up to it. His chest rose and fell heavily. Stab wounds dotted his flesh. Blood poured down his skin and to the floor, through his clothes, in his mouth and his eyes, which had rolled into his skull.

Fuck.

The sound of the song ending soars from below us. "You'll never know…you'll never know…"

Craig takes a shallow breath, and takes no more.

I stand, look at the box cutter, and toss it aside. His last words were "Jesus fucking Christ." They run through my mind, both as a quote and as an expletive. Jesus fucking Christ, man.

I peer over at Tweek for guidance. Why did he stop moving?

Turns out he had fallen asleep before I had even made the first cut.

--

I was confused, disoriented, and falling in and out of sleep as Craig put the cold metal object into my hands, touched my fingers to its surface and rubbed the handle on my palm.

"S'…wrong?" Each word felt like lugging a boulder up a mountain. My tongue dropped to my cheek, completely at the mercy of gravity.

"Self defense." Craig's silhouette informed me gravely. He had taken off his hat to hold whatever it was he was so fascinated in, and let it drop to the ground. I closed my eyes again and fell asleep for a few seconds.

The backs of my eyelids turned white as he punched me, hard, in the face. I felt something in my nose dislodge. Wetness seeped through my nostrils. Before I could question the first, another blow hit me in the side. I gasped, and, being that my body had been threatening to do so for nearly forty-five minutes, blew chunks onto the tousled comforter.

He thoroughly pummeled me, putting his weight into every strike. Though it was difficult to hear over my sleepy panic, I thought I heard him muttering, or maybe shouting, "_You fucking bitch. You little bitch!_"

I don't know how much longer. I lay on the floor, naked, unable to move, be it through exhaustion, or the numbness I felt in every extremity, as Craig stood over me, making noises that were halfway between sobs and frustrated grunts. Finished meditating, he stomped over to the wall, flicked on the light, and surveyed my injuries.

"Christ, buddy. Look." He stooped, grabbed my jaw and pointed my face in the direction of something—

"You killed Clyde." He informed.

Clyde lay, dead, stained red and full of uniform, inch-long stab wounds. His eyes were wide open, rheumy with blood, and his clothes were torn. Clyde was dead. Did I kill Clyde?

"Get up."

I can't. I close my eyes tight, praying to whatever God I could think of, knowing I would be next, and I fell asleep for another few seconds. He slapped me in my raw, torn face.

"You HAVE to get up, Tweek. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Salty wetness burns as it enters my skin through the open wounds. "Look, everything will be okay. I'll protect you. I'll save you. You have to get up."

_I _can't_. I can't even tell you that I can't. _

I pass out once more. I assume he must've tried slapping me again, but I'm gone.

Here's what Craig told me to tell the police.

Clyde spiked my drink with roofies. (True.) Thinking I had passed out, he proceeded to rape me. (True.) I regained consciousness long enough to find the box cutter in the back pocket of my jeans, and proceeded to stab him. (False, that was Craig.) Angry at being stabbed, he beat the crap out of me. (False, that was Craig.) In defense, I stabbed him as many times as I could. (False, that was Craig.) By the time he stopped, he had been wounded to the point of bleeding to death. That was the point at which Craig came in, and quickly called the police.

In any other police department in America, this hole-ridden story would've been further investigated, but this was South Park. An aging Officer Barbrady saw a dead boy, a severely injured boy whose urine sample showed high doses of Flunitrazepam and asshole showed excessive abuse, and a box cutter covered in said boy's fingerprints. He put it off as self-defense and went home to eat pie.

--

A/N: Like the second week of school, in detention, I drew a pic of Craig with a box cutter, shouting "I'LL FUCKING CUT YOU, BITCH!" From then on I think of box cutters when I think of him. Nnn…it's weird to think that a story idea I had like two months ago was connected to the other chapters in this story, but this one sort of brings it all home. –shrug- Sorry to give you li'l bits of fluff and then this YAY MURDER. Poor Tweeker. Raped, sort of witnessed a murder, beaten the crap out of…too bad his night's not even over yet. ),: Tell me what you think. I'm a little self-conscience.


	8. Scotch

A/N: So…time is…very warped in this here fic. ;; It's been a few years…that makes…NO sense. Ugh. W/e. Don't hate me, you read the prologue, Tweek be happy at the end! Albeit fucked up psychologically. Oh, and how annoying is it that I keep changing tenses? I should freakin' die.

--

I get a misplaced sense of satisfaction upon surveying him. That he would do anything because I told him to do it. That one of his eyes was ringed in purple. That his split bottom lip was quivering perfectly.

"I'm really th-thirsty." He whimpered. His voice is scratchy, like there's something clogged in his throat.

"I think you're clean. Drain the tub, and then take one more shower. I'll go pick up some snacks. If you don't scrub hard enough, I'm going to do it for you. Okay?" His lime-pulp eyes widen. His arms, crossed under his chin, still bear the broken, white flakes of skin, rubbed raw sores sprouting from his elbows to his wrists. I lean against the doorframe, feeling sedate and calculated. If someone were to tell me my actions were at all odd, I would assume this person was insane. I didn't feel shaky, angry, frightened, or at all nonsensical. Perfectly calm, if a little buzzed.

Tweek was dirty, so I made him clean himself. For about twenty-one hours. He still bore traces of Other on him, that sticky, sweaty substance that clings to promiscuous boys and girls and cheaters and players, but never to my Tweek. But I felt I might be able to touch him again.

To test, I took a step closer. He flinched as I brought my fingertips close to his cheek, a hair's breadth away. Finally, after mustering all my shaking energy into the extended arm, I manage to poke him gently, causing the neighboring eye to close briefly. No go. I jam the hand under the bottle of liquid soap, slam my hand down on the pump, and crack it jaggedly down the pipe that connects it to the bottle. Swearing, I unscrew the leftover plastic ring, pour thick blobs of musky blue liquid onto my palms, and rub them thoroughly under the scalding flow of the sink. Tweek observes me with childish curiosity, head slightly cocked, as if he had no energy to support his own bones. I storm out of the bathroom, jamming my arms into my coat, and snatch the yellow and black tuque I'd found in the back of my car on the ride home. Like I was ever going to touch the offending blue earflap cap again.

---

My flesh burns as I grind stinging white soap into the open wounds. The folds of water-soaked skin have split, leaving long slits. One last rinse with icy water, all that's left and all I can stand, before I turn off the water and step, dripping, out of my porcelain cell. The drain gurgles. I pull a crumpled towel from the rack, wrap it around my hips, and scurry out of the bathroom.

Is this the apartment I felt so at home in? The blinds are closed, leaving only depressing slats of light to slip onto the furniture, causing contrasting stripes of color and darkness.

My first stop is the kitchen sink. Finding a glass would be too cumbersome. I bend down an inch or so from the faucet and suck up the stream, until I'm satiated enough to fill a plastic cup to sip from.

I've already half moved in. Boxes of my things sit around the circumference of the door, scattered into the living room. Already some things have freed themselves; my books have been squeezed around the boyish contents of his bookshelf, my PS2 has been hooked up. I pull off the lid of one box; dig through until I find the correct combination of clothing.

The door squeals open as I'm pulling on a pair of green-striped boxers. Craig chooses to ignore me as he passes by, dumping an armload of paper bags on the small bar. He pulls a large bottle of something amber from one, unscrews the top, and chugs it.

"Eat what you want." He says, as if speaking to himself. One hand tightly grips the bottle, the other the side of the counter. He sags slightly to one side, and I instinctively jerk forward to catch him—however, after a moment paused an inch south of his full height, he stumbles toward the couch, hits the arm at knee level, and plops down like a fallen tree.

I surveyed the cluster of paper bags on the counter. My stomach feels taut; no matter how misplaced it feels in the dead aura omitted by the corpse that was not be but was certainly mine on the couch, I need food. In my underwear, I empty each one. He's bought a new tin of coffee, cookie dough poptarts, a few mint milky ways, salt and pepper chips. Things he doesn't like but knows I do. Maybe he's not mad. I tear into the poptarts, cursing the loud ripping and crinkling it makes in the semi-awkward semi-helpful silence, break off a piece of suck on, and set about putting away the groceries.

"Tweeker?"

"Ky-AACK." A gallon of milk hits the floor. I lift it to inspect the fast leak.

"Do you hate me?"

Craig doesn't own a pitcher, so I attempt to pour the new milk into the old milk's near-empty carton in the sink, losing a stressful amount down the drain. "Wh-what? No! Why would I hate you?"

I hear air bubbles shifting in his bottle. "S'not…are you…afraid of me?"

I remain silent as I screw the cap back on the half-full milk and return it to the fridge.

"I killed Clyde. I'm a fucking murderer. You know I have it in me. I could kill you, too."

_Oh Jesus he's got a fucking knife or something back there._

"Christ, I'm sorry, I was worrying…I could never h--…really…kill you. You know that, right?" I hear him shift. When I turn to finish the job with the groceries, he's staring at me with wet grey eyes. Craig could never cry unless he was really hammered. I know.

"I know."

"Good. Take a nap after you eat, okay? It's…almost five. If you were anybody else you'd be passing out. Jeez, speaking of which, have you ever gone this long without coffee?" He chortles, flips back around on the couch, and drains his bottle.

--

A/N: OH. MY. GOD. This…this is…UGGH. Guess what I did today? Wrote 150-word responses to fifteen essays on the exact same thing; Plato and Aristotle. How many times can you say "ARISTOTLE WUZ POOR BUT PLATO WUZ RICH." But I haven't updated in fuh-evah. So I'll go back and do better later. Right now…I'm gonna listen to Caramelldansen and browse 4chan. HEDONISM!


	9. Puke

A/N: I renamed the last chapter. Please excuse the inevitable poorly done research on drugs. Don't take me so seriously; I wrote this in my underwear listening to Merry Fucking Christmas on repeat.

--

I wriggled out from under the sheet, stumbling as my bare foot tangled and hitting the ground awkwardly on my elbows.

"Don't be such a bitch…" Clyde muttered. There's no enthusiasm or push behind his voice; an almost remorseful vein runs through it, reflected brightly in his posture. He sits, naked, his legs tucked under him, almost looking like a boy about to pray, his arms cast before him, hands splayed out on the exposed piece of mattress.

"You're fucked up, man." I snort. Through much thrashing, I manage to free myself from the cotton bear trap. My clothes lay in a discarded ball underneath his desk chair. Before any other article, I locate my blue cap and jam it down over my sweat-moistened hair. I proceed to pull my black jeans up over my bare hip bones.

I can barely hear what he mutters; only the word "Not" is prominent. He throws himself side-down on the bed, bouncing slightly. I can feel his eyes lazily resting on my back as I finish dressing.

I appreciate kinky; role-playing, sure. Experimenting, sure. But I didn't find much pleasure in Clyde's little fetish. I'd role-played rape before, but Craig just did it…_wrong_. There was too much passion, or fuel, or something. And who tries to get a consensual partner to voluntarily take sedatives? That's what sex dolls are for.

"I think I'm getting sick of this shit." I grumble. The light slipping through the gap between the blinds is dark blue, like something out of a box of crayons. It moodily illuminates the side of his desk; a bottle of generic looking lotion sitting blatantly before the sleeping monitor.

"You're such a fucking prude."

"Well, not just you…this whole…never mind." I shrug my jacket on. This whole fuck everything human and willing thing. This whole pushing the limit farther and farther, waiting until you fall of the edge. Flavored condoms and crawling onto a mattress with someone else's dried-on cum. The constant worry of getting butt-pregnant. That last one was a joke.

Clyde has pulled out his savvy little flip phone. Already finding someone else to plug a hole, or someone with a hole to plug.

"Seeya."

"Fuck off."

---

We're sick.

My mom keeps calling. Our conversations are repetitive, but they seem to comfort her. Reassure her that I'm not badly hurt, that I just need to be with Craig, who sits, staring at me from the other end of the couch. For the first time I envy Kyle and his shrieking, demanding mother.

We have been steadily drinking throughout the morning. Craig from an orange, strong-smelling something from an unlabeled bottle shaped like a wine bottle, me in little gulps from a tepid mug of coffee to help me swallow the Diazepam. Though the room's spinning slightly, I am willing to bet that it is for Craig, as well, and in my fucked little mind it makes me believe that it is not only acceptable to down the bottom half of a month's prescription, but the only honorable course of action.

When you're sick, you're supposed to take drugs. You sit on the couch and watch daytime television, and put blankets up over the windows so the light doesn't kill you, and you're allowed to be lethargic and eat trash, and it's okay that you lost the motivation to be dressed after throwing on boxers and a loose T-shirt. We have an excuse.

I start to unscrew the top of my pill bottle (when did they make these seals so strong?) before Craig carefully snatches it away, sending it over the back of the couch and into the nests of debris that settle and are forgotten 'til you need to vacuum.

"You're gonna put yourself into a coma, faggot." He grunts, staring callously forward. Touch me. For the love of God touch me.

Why is it that he's the one who gets to go crazy when I was the one who was raped? He intentionally killed Clyde. I was not intentionally drugged and penetrated. Like a little kid protesting preferential treatment toward a sibling, I pout, wishing desperately that he would give me a sign. Anything.

--

Trying to out-awake Tweek is a stupid attempt. I instead chose to willingly slip into a hazy cat-nap as soon as could be managed, then awake some four hours later when his shallow, raspy breathing finally settled into that slow rhythmic tone that announces sleep and sickness.

Two short car rides and lots of loading up later, I've convinced Tweek's parents to allow me, alone, to pack up Tweek's things and bring them over. A sort of official ownership transferal. Tweek's mother thanks me for "taking care of her boy after that awful mess" and his father glares, sending out telepathic messages that it was my fault. He's right. Fucker.

When I arrive back at the lair, Tweek is in the kitchen, botching an attempt to open a new bag of cereal. He glances up, and his eyes just kill me—those dead, dilated, olive-colored disks of accusations and innocence and apathy. The thick smog of Other remains on his skin, or else I would have to squeeze him. Squeeze him tight in something that could be a hug or a choke depending on how you wanted to see it.

"I have the rest of your things." I say, attempting to smile with the same results as his cereal-opening escapade. I can't read his resulting expression; I can tell that it's not quite happy, or maybe even—

He drops to the ground like a corpse.

The empty bottle of diazepam sits on the counter beside his waiting bowl. Fucking...

--

I wake up as semi-digested pop tarts spill up my throat and into the toilet. Before I get a chance to cough, or pull away, a finger is jammed back into my mouth. He pushes down on the back of my tongue, and though I gag, I can't control it, and puke spews up. The best I can do is aim for the bowl, which is difficult, considering my vision is taking some time to blossom back.

"Were you trying to k-kill yourself?" He shouts. His other arm is curled under my arms and across my chest, holding me up like little kids hold cats. With this arm he shakes me roughly while he forces me to purge the third time, scratching the back of my throat. He jams my head below the seat briefly to allow me to vomit. "Huh? You trying to commit suicide?"

"YAH! N-no, I swear!" I choke. I taste blood. With a gloved hand, he grabs my forehead and pulls me up to his level, inciting a squeal. The back of my head conforms to the crook caused by his neck and shoulder. I can feel the heat of his face, as well as wetness. I stutter wildly.

"Tweek! Don't! Hurt yourself! I'm doing this for you, okay? I can protect you. I'm doing this to _protect_ you. Nothing bad is ever gonna happen to you ever again! You just have to COOPERATE!" His voice breaks. As if in disgust, he throws me forward. I hit the toilet seat at chest-level, taking away my wind. As I lay, gasping, curled in the fetal position with my face jammed in the gap between the counter and the tile. Craig might still be speaking in his own mind—he was sobbing loudly, almost shouting

"I W-WASN'T trying to k-k-kill myself!" I whine into my knees. "It was an—ergg—ACCIDENT!" It's difficult to raise my volume level above his. I hear a crash as he slams his fist through the flimsy door, giving a grunt.

I don't want Craig to feel this way. I love Craig.

I sit up, rub my nose on my shoulder, and throw my arms around Craig's neck, pressing my chest into his back. Although his breathing is still deep and loud, he shuts up.

"Don't…d-don't be...I'll do anything you want. Okay? Just don't feel—ergh—bad." I nuzzle his neck. "Please!"

There's a long, sedated silence, before Craig lifts his fist to stare at the blood blossoming from white scraps of torn skin at his knuckles, conforming in orange-red streams to the lines of his skin. Unexpectedly, again drawing a squeak from my damaged throat, he falls to the floor, bringing me down with him. On the hard, cold tile, he rolls 180 to face me, kisses the tip of my nose, and huge me tight.

"You're a good boy, Tweek."

--

A/N: MOAR EMOTION.


	10. Snow

A/N: Geez, reading back over this, I can just feel all the changes my life has undergone the past…almost year

A/N: HEY! I swear to God, the moment I type the last word of this, I'm going to bawl like a baby. Soooo much shit has happened since I started this story…all…weirdly related to its contents…what? Hm. That's creepy. …Like, woah, how am I just now realizing this…? It's the end of an era, isn't it? –sigh- Well, anyway, keep all hands and legs inside the ride at all times. And Craig's CRAZY.

--

He touches me again. Affectionate, parental touches; nothing vaguely sexual. I can cope with that.

He comes home one day with a crate filled with those little orange plastic pill bottles; none labeled. Every morning, he administers one to me, and one to himself. I never ask as to their purpose. I've become a deaf mute invalid; he directs me from one action to the next. With the time I'm not using to fulfill an order, I take to cleaning, TV watching, plant raising, and sleeping.

It's gotten a lot easier.

He works consistently from eight to seven at an electronics store, each morning warning me not to leave the apartment or open the door for anything, then stands outside the door to listen to me setting the deadbolt, which was a futile act, considering he manually locked it using the key from outside anyway.

The house is always clean. I sweep imaginary dust into the pan, and drown all my plants. He buys me a DS and a pet simulator.

Time smears and runs and skips around; at times I think it's Friday when it's Wednesday, and sometimes I think it's been three days when it's only been one.

He clips newspaper articles regarding murders, accidents, and impending doom, and hangs them on the refrigerator.

He's nice, if not distant, paranoid, and of course, controlling to the point of psychosis. He thanks me for making dinner, reminds me that he loves me, buys me gifts, and lectures me on his importance in my life. The world outside is dangerous. He couldn't stand to lose me.

I tell him I understand.

I stay within the confines of the apartment walls for three years.

--

I don't know how long I've been unloading the dishwasher. I know that it must've only been a few minutes, considering the space left from the little progress I'd made, but I feel as if I've been pulling out the same dish, while Craig sits at the table and eats the same spoonful of cereal, for at least an hour.

Distracted as I attempt to work out the chronology in my mind, I don't notice as I spin too close to the counter while holding a glass bowl. It bangs against ehe edge and shatters, scattering glass over the floor and my feet.

It's hard to process the curved, three-inch piece of glass sticking from the top of my foot, and the blood pouring in streams down to the tile floor. I can feel the pain, but I don't really care.

Craig does.

"Oh God, Tweek, that's really deep." He says, jumping to my side to inspect it.

"Do I need stitches?"

"Yeah, you probably do."

"Do I need to go to a hospital?"

Craig looks up; his eyes wide, yet narrowed, in angry shock. "No! Of course not! I can do it."

He uses tweezers to remove the glass, and a routine needle and thread to bridge the gap between the split sides of my flesh. He leaves for work directly afterwards. I take my CGI dog for a walk.

Three days later, as we sit watching TV after dinner, I remark at the swelling and color around the cut. He bites his lip.

Two days after that, I wake up beside Craig at four AM, sweating profusely.

He calls in sick that day to take me to the hospital.

--

I knew I was fucking up. Just like in school, when I knew I was gonna fail no matter what I did, so I chose to ignore all work rather than attempt for a more respectable, yet still failing, grade. I'd destroyed my Tweek. And I continued to do so. But I couldn't lose him. I would sooner have him a zombie than dead.

For some reason.

I was terrified as I held his wrist, nearly breaking his bird bones, trying to rush him as quickly as possible from the danger of the four-room apartment building to the diminished danger of the interior of my truck.

The trip only lasted about forty five minutes, drive included; they pulled out my shoddy stitch work, cleaned the cut properly, restitched, and gave us an antibiotic for him to take. It was the most frightening forty five minutes of my life.

He stares with slightly conscious eyes out the car window as I speed home. My heart breaks. The sedatives I provided each of us with each morning were doing their intended job; my considerably smaller dosage curbing my anger, his keeping him walking dead.

I knew I had to repent somehow. I couldn't release him out into the world, because the risk of losing him was far too high. If there was any risk, it was too high.

I was killing him.

I couldn't be without him.

Everything became clear.

--

Craig calls in sick the next day, too. I don't know why. I don't ask questions.

Neither of us take the pills.

We spend the morning lying naked under the comforter, my head in the crook between his jaw and his shoulder, his hand on my hip. Everything feels sop clear, and ordered; a minute lasts sixty seconds every time, and I love Craig. Rational, logical thoughts.

I know Craig's done pretty awful things. But, I went along with them. I love him so much; I'd do anything to keep his feeling of security. If in order to let him know I'd always be around, I had to always be around, so be it.

The first word he says after three hours of lying in this position are; "Tweek, do you even know how old you are?"

Of course I—what? "I…I'm…I have no idea." When did that happen?"

"You're twenty three, Tweek."

When did I get so old?

Where had I been?

…Here.

Craig separated out two components, leaving all the places that had been touching him comfortably to feel bare and lonely. "Hold on a second." He said as an explanation as he folded back the comforter to allow himself to leave.

I watched as he pulled a pair of jeans over his bare hip bones, then walked out of the room, scratching his midriff cutely.

After a moment, I heard the sound of the front door opening and closing.

I waited for nearly half an hour.

--

The apartment always reminded Tweek of the Wayside school; four floors, one room per floor, plus a small area to allow enough room for the door into the floor's designated room and the staircase leading to and from the next.

Just outside the door to their apartment, Tweek noted a pair of tweezers.

He stooped to pick them up.

On the bottom step leading to the fourth floor, he saw the lid to a canister of coffee.

He approached it. And picked it up as well.

He mounted the stairs.

The trail of miscellaneous items led to the door leading to the roof. Tweek had never been on it before; however, he knew Craig was giving him permission to go outside.

A whoosh of cold air frosted him over as he opened the door; it was snowing. With slight hesitation due to the temperature, he left the heated interior of the apartment and stepped into the snow. There were footprints leading from where he stood to the edge of the roof; on the edge, Craig;s cell phone lay open.

Tweek's stomach sank.

He approached the phone, shaking partially due to the cold and partially out of fear; as far from the edge as he could, he stretched his arm and batted it into his reach, where he picked it up.

The numbers 911 has been typed in; all he needed to do to contact the police was press send.

He thought he was going to puke as he slowly leaned toward the roof, attempting to see what lay beneath the edge, in the new snow.

--

A/N: Oh…whoops! One more chapter. I'll write it right away. Plz review; although be warned that I'm basically pouring my fucking soul out here and I'd appreciate some god damn respect for that. I know it's a little jankity and inconsistent, and I pretty much suck at writing in first person, and I probably made nine thousand flaws, but…uh…actually never mind. Say what you want, I deserve it.


	11. Dirt

I've moved back in with my parents. Nobody's asked me what's been going on the latter half of my life; they know I'm not ready. I've got a job in the coffee shop, pouring coffee while another employee talks to the customers. Mom says it'll take some time before I can function with people again. And that I can take all the time I need.

Craig had been keeping contact with everyone somehow. Lizzie and Kenny worked in the same electronics store as he did. I wasn't sure how he had managed to maintain friendships behind my back, but nearly everyone from high school had come to the funeral, despite the general scattering across the state that had ensued after graduation. Aside from offering polite condolences at the funeral, no one had really spoken to me. I wouldn't have spoken to me either; after coming back into society, I realized I looked like a ghost. Also there's that whole thing about me killing Clyde.

Mom and Dad had left at my request; it wasn't a long walk home. The last corner of his coffin was submerged beneath a shovel of dirt.

I felt suspended without him to hold me down.

Where was I supposed to go?

"Hey Tweek!"

I turned over my shoulder; down the shallow hill, a small crowd had congregated around the parked cars. I thought everyone had left. Upon further inspection, I realized it was the old crowd. They chatted amongst each other, some looking solemn, some laughing, all looking so…_the same_.

Stan had been the one to call. "We were all gonna meet up at Ihop; you wanna come?"

I hesitated, cleared my throat, trying not to panic. "S-sure!" I finally managed to call back.

"C'mon, we'll give you a ride."

I took three steps toward the crowd; gave a look back at the grave oer my shoulder.

I needed to say something. More like a million things; but I didn't have the time. I had to move on.

"I…love you."

As quickly as I could, I walked the rest of the way down the hill, climbed into the back of Stan's Focus, and let myself be carried away.

--

A/N: Omigod. I…I can't believe it's over. Oo My perception of the characters has changed as I've developed them more in my head…so there's gonna be some characterization problems…I changed tenses like eight millions times…I'm sure it was terrible in some places…but…it's my baby, y'know? My retarded baby. :C Whelp…tell me what you think. Oh! And this story's song is Smells Like Teen Spirit.


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